TLO Member Interview: Dr. Valzer

TLO Member Interview: Dr. Valzer
Conducted by Phillip Stecco

Richard Gavin is the author of the story collections Charnel Wine, Omens, and The Darkly Splendid Realm. Mr. Gavin lives in Canada.


1) How did you first encounter the work of Thomas Ligotti?

As best as I can recall, it was on the recommendation of my friend Don Webb. This would’ve been sometime in the mid-‘90s and the first story I read was “Alice’s Last Adventure” in Douglas Winter’s PRIME EVIL anthology. I was extremely impressed by the tale’s lush prose and oneiric ambiance. Soon after this I bought GRIMSCRIBE at a Toronto bookstore and once I read “The Night School” and “The Cocoons” I realized that Thomas Ligotti was one of the greatest living horror authors. I began collecting his entire oeuvre. Stories like “Professor Nobody’s Little Lectures on Supernatural Horror” and “Gas Station Carnivals” convinced me that Ligotti was an unequalled master of the form.

Mr. Ligotti is also one of the few writers I ever wrote a “fan letter” to, shortly after this very website came into existence as a matter of fact. I’m proud to say that I’ve enjoyed some truly illuminating and inspiring correspondence with him over the years. I still feel the same powerful resonance with the “Macabrist” worldview that runs throughout his work, so it’s been a true pleasure to be able to discuss this and other topics with the author himself.


2) What are some of your favorite works by Mr. Ligotti?

Besides the above-mentioned tales, I never tire of re-reading “The Bungalow House,” “Purity,” MY WORK IS NOT YET DONE, “The Journal of J.P. Drapeau,” and the “Notebook of the Night” vignettes from NOCTUARY.


3) What other writers do you enjoy reading?

Although the majority of my reading is non-fiction, I’ve never lost my fiery enthusiasm for great horror fiction. Some writers that delight me are Robert Aickman, Jonathan Aycliffe, Nathan Ballingrud, Clive Barker, Laird Barron, Charles Beaumont, Algernon Blackwood, Robert Bloch, Ray Bradbury, Ramsey Campbell, Matt Cardin, Douglas Clegg, Walter de la Mare, Philip K. Dick, Dennis Etchison, Hanns Heinz Ewers, Gemma Files, Charles L. Grant, the Bros. Grimm, James Herbert, J.K. Huysmans, Shirley Jackson, M.R. James, Jack Ketchum, Caitlin R. Kiernan, early Stephen King, T.E.D. Klein, Kathe Koja, Terry Lamsley, Joel Lane, Comte de Lautréamont, J.S. LeFanu, Fritz Leiber, D.F. Lewis, Jean Lorrain, Lovecraft, Arthur Machen, Elizabeth Massie, Richard Matheson, Guy de Maupassant, Gary McMahon, Kim Newman, Reggie Oliver, Tom Piccirilli, Poe, Mark Samuels, Claude Seignolle, Simon Strantzas, Peter Straub, Koji Suzuki, Melanie and Steve Rasnic Tem, Don Tumasonis, Lisa Tuttle, Karl Edward Wagner, Don Webb, and T.M Wright.

The other fiction authors I enjoy reading would likely be classed as “mainstream” or “literary” (though I’m not very fond of either term). They include Jorge Luís Borges, William S. Burroughs, A.S. Byatt, Truman Capote, Raymond Carver, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Ernest Hemingway, Franz Kafka, Cormac McCarthy, Vladimir Nabokov, Joyce Carol Oates, Flannery O’Connor, Dorothy Parker, and Bruno Schulz.


4) How important is the role of the Canadian writer within the weird fiction scene at large?

Canada’s contribution to weird fiction is growing, or at the very least is becoming more noticeable. My country has a long but typically shy relationship with horror in general, but I believe our role is an important one. After all, we’ve produced David Cronenberg, the Award-winning Gemma Files, “Rue Morgue” magazine, Skinny Puppy, and Michael Slade.

For some mysterious reason, the weird/cosmic/quiet/occult strand of horror fiction has really begun to bloom here over the last ten years or so. What’s interesting is that the Canadian weird writers --- Simon Strantzas, Barbara Roden, Michael Kelly, etc. --- all write uniquely and many came upon the “scene” independently, earning their reputations through quite disparate venues. I, for example, cut my teeth in U.S. and Europe-based ‘zines and anthologies and had no idea there were other weird writers working right in my backyard until I began to meet some of them at conventions and similar gatherings.

In the end though, I don’t think an author’s nationality is overly important, especially in weird tales. Aside from a few cultural nods and nuances in the text, supernatural horror is a universal art-form that crosses cultural and generational distinctions.


5) What writing projects are you currently involved in?

Dark Regions Press has just released my third collection, THE DARKLY SPLENDID REALM, which is my first full-length book since 2007’s OMENS. I have new stories coming out in Ex Occidente’s Gustav Meyrink tribute anthology and in CTHULHU 2012 from Mythos Books. The next volume of the “Starfire” occult journal will feature an exclusive short story of mine that deals with the Crowley-related Lam entity.

My works-in-progress are longer pieces. I’m currently down in the writerly trenches working on a horror novel that I hope to have completed for a 2010 release. I’ve also got one or two very exciting (to me, at least) projects on the horizon that I hope to announce sometime next year.


6) Do you have any favorite singers or musicians?

Dark ambient is my soundtrack of choice: Lustmord, Aghast, Brighter Death Now, Controlled Bleeding, Archon Satani, Ordo Equilibrio, etc.

The atonal assaults from composers like Krzysztof Penderecki, Jared Davison, Béla Bartók, and Gyorgi Ligeti are fine approximations of the aural jolts I experience during my nightmares, so their works are in regular rotation on my stereo.

I also enjoy a lot from the metal genre (King Diamond/Mercyful Fate, Black Sabbath, Opeth, and Dimmu Borgir, to name but a few) and the horror film scores of John Carpenter, Goblin, and Fabio Frizzi.

I can generally listen to anything that comes on the radio (with the exception of country music and rap, which I flat-out dislike) but I do not own any pop/rock/jazz/blues CDs.


7) Do you have any favorite artists in the visual media?

Absolutely: René Magritte, Salvador Dali, Steffi Grant, H.R. Giger, J.K. Potter, Zdzislaw Beksinski, Austin Osman Spare, Andrew Chumbley, Franz von Stuck, Thomas J. Wright, Edward Gorey, “Ghastly” Graham Ingels, Chas. Addams, Bernie Wrightson, Stanislav Szukalski, and Michael Hussar. From the world of tattooing (an art-form that I consider to be every bit as vital and important as the more “respectable” mediums), Paul Booth, Bob Tyrell, Robert Hernandez, and Shige are all masters.


8) What are some of your favorite movies?

Rosemary’s Baby, Vampyr, Beyond Dream’s Door, Videodrome, The Black Cat (w/Karloff & Lugosi), Nosferatu, Lèvres de sang, Don’t Look Now, The Tenant, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Long Day’s Journey into Night, Rope, Altered States, Psycho, Prince of Darkness, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Night of the Living Dead, The Masque of the Red Death, Night Breed, The Resurrected, The Dunwich Horror, I Walked with a Zombie, Mario Bava’s Black Sunday, Daughters of Darkness, Pin..., The Mothman Prophecies, The Innocents.


9) Do you watch television?

Very rarely. I have a TV but not cable, so I’m fairly out of the loop when it comes to popular shows. Obviously there have been programs I’ve enjoyed over the years: ‘Night Gallery,’ ‘Unsolved Mysteries,’ ‘In Search Of...,’‘Tales from the Darkside,’ ‘Oz.’ I’m a fan of ‘Lost,’ which fortunately I’m able to follow on DVD. I try to stay on top of the goings-on in the world through radio, the slightly-less-shady corners of the internet, and newspapers.


10) What foods do you enjoy eating?

I’ve been a vegetarian for nearly twenty years, so that forced me to branch out beyond the basic “meat & potatoes” fare of North America. I enjoy cooking and love foods from all over the world. Indian cuisine is my favourite.


11) Do you have any odd hobbies or collecting fetishes?

Well, I suppose “odd” would depend on who’s asking! As a matter of fact, I *do* have a fetish for collecting fetishes... specifically statues and effigies. Several years ago my wife and I began piecing together a shrine to dark/maligned gods and goddesses, so one room in our house is decorated with grim statues and masks that some people find a little off-putting.

I have a library of some two-thousand books or so, which of course grows each year. I have a modest DVD collection as well. I used to collect monster model kits and figures when I was younger, but I eventually lost interest in doing so.


12) What recreational activities do you enjoy?

Sleeping, roaming isolated places, daydreaming, playing with my kids, breaking bread with close friends. Of course all of these activities have led to stories, so I suppose they might fall under “work” just as easily as recreation.


13) What makes you laugh?

Existence.

Although I love the satirical (or outright scathing) comedy of George Carlin, ‘The Simpsons,’ the Marx Brothers, Dave Chappelle, and the absurdist sketches of Monty Python, I don’t think any comedy-art can equal the bizarre and rich stories I hear chatting with friends or meeting new people. The daily grind is often a protracted black comedy.


14) Life?

The paradox through which consciousness simultaneously hides and reveals itself. The point of life is to realize one’s self fully and completely. But of course the only way one can achieve this is by recognizing that one’s “self” does not truly exist; only enlightenment does. We must ceaselessly jar ourselves out of the sleep of “I,” must constantly push ourselves beyond our comfort zones to remind ourselves that the universe is vast and we are reflections of that vastness.

Dark/macabre art is an excellent vehicle for this. Psychological/affect horror reminds us of how frail our bodies are and reveals to us the myriad dangers of the wilderness we roam. Supernatural horror is important because it provides us with an unnerving dose of otherness. This otherness is meaningful because all those strange monsters in the pit are really just reflections of us. The monstrous only seems “other” or “alien” because we have forgotten that the universe is complete and not fragmented. When we fully grasp that notion, chances are we’re on the threshold of…


15) Death?

The great inevitability that everyone must come to grips with in their own way. Just as the ending is often what gives a story its meaning, Death is the finality that should inspire each of us to make the most of our lives (which we don’t really have to begin with, but let’s sidestep this minefield, shall we?). It is the moment when we start staring back from the opposite side of the mirror.


16) Work?

A very good thing. Leisure is vastly overrated.


17) Do you have any interesting work anecdotes to relate?

Not really. I work at a bookstore, so I suppose one interesting story might be how my coworkers reacted when my books started being stocked on our shelves. There are some who’ve never looked at me the same way after reading my fiction. At one time this would have bothered me, but I now think it’s better to integrate and engage the various aspects of my life than try to keep things compartmentalized and schismatic.


18) What is your earliest childhood memory?

Staring out through the rungs of my parent’s balcony (we were on a low floor) and calling out to the people coming in and out of the building. Our balcony was safeguarded with slabs of wood, so I would just be this eye peering out at strangers, calling out “Hiiiii...” I had an unusually deep voice as a toddler, so I imagine I was unnerving people even then.


19) What is your fondest childhood memory?

Building “haunted house” exhibits for my family to tour. Creating such attractions around Halloween would be one thing, but I would hang fake cobwebs and set up little monster dioramas all the time. Admission was a nickel, I believe.


20) Who has been the most influential person in your life?

My wife, for many reasons.


21) Do you have a special plan for this world?

Indeed. I plan to produce a body of work that I hope frightens and shocks people into an awareness of the boundless Night inside their heads. We’re all in this together. My job is to remind you that you are not really here. Your job is to say the same about me.

We must all strive to speak the unspeakable, to name the unnamable.


22) What else should we know about you?

I’m standing right behind you...